 All right, here's the plan for the invasion of Onigashima. Kinamon leads the East Army, whilst Dendro leads the West Army. Together, they wander aimlessly in circles, repeatedly around the island. Whilst Trafalgar Law, no doubt, hindered by the vassals, sneaks in and claims Kaido's greatest treasure, the subscribe button for the Grand Line Review, the pressing of which will grant the Allied Forces regular One Piece content uploaded straight into their YouTube feeds. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece, and today we have a review of chapter 979, Family Problem. So One Piece is back and just before we do, dive into this chapter in detail. For any of you who missed the announcement on my channel, Etura Oda has indeed made a statement that he anticipates One Piece to be taking more breaks in order to both protect himself and his assistance from the current pandemic. So One Piece for the foreseeable future is going to enter a much slower schedule to what we're used to, so let us savor these chapters. Speaking of chapter 979 was a bit all over the place in the best possible way. There was a lot of straw hat fun time shenanigans, there was also a lot of antagonist type, and there was even a stirring of drama towards the end. So this chapter very much gave us a solid trifecta of One Piece. But let's begin somewhere in the middle, I guess, for quite possibly the most intriguing piece of information dropped, which is the name of Kaido's son being Yamato. And as much as, yes, I was hoping for this to be Kada Kuri, and I guess that's still possible, there could be multiple children, but this actually goes on to make Wano all the more intriguing. To think that on top of everything else we need to deal with during this arc, we now have a mini Kaido running around, who is seemingly so powerful that we need the entirety of the tobi roppo just to bring him back. It's an intriguing new presence to be revealed in what could be, I guess, mistaken for the climax of Wano, and it's another one of those things that just makes me think that this arc still has an awfully long way to go. Actually, it kind of reminds me of Holkei Kailand, where right before the wedding ceremony, all of a sudden we were introduced to one Charlotte Kada Kuri, who completely revolutionized the arc. And not only that, but his introduction only happened about halfway through the arc. So honestly, I think we're on a bit of a similar trajectory here with Wano. We're now about 70 chapters in, which for some comparison, Holkei Kailand was only 78 chapters in total, but we are still consistently introducing new characters and story-wise, almost nothing has been resolved. All we really know is Odin's story, who the trader is, and the identity of Dendro. That's it. So as close as we're getting, I'd argue that the pieces aren't even properly in place for a climax yet. I mean, we still need to explore so, so much and Yamato is the latest in a long line of threads that I very much look forward to delving into. From an artistic perspective, though, my favorite moment in this chapter was definitely seeing the tobi roppo gathered in front of Kaido. Odin frequently makes use of this very subtle but ever so effective little artistic trick here, where he turns the ground into a slight concave, which here results in all of the characters kind of leaning into the middle, towards Kaido and making sure that he is the dominant focus of the panel. It's such a small thing, but it's so damn effective and I love it. A lesser artist would have just had all the characters standing on a flat surface, which would make the overall image look quite flat as a result, but instead, this panel has a wonderful dynamic sense about it, and it's all because of one very simple choice made by Odin. As for the tobi roppo, they continue to grow on me quite rapidly, although I think I have a definite favorite at this point, which is most certainly Ulty. I love how quickly she seems to shift between emotions and how she isn't afraid to speak her mind in front of Kaido, and also how Kaido doesn't seem to care at all. And the other one I very much took note of once again was Who's Who because he gave off such a sinister vibe this week, especially immediately after both King and Jack said that they would willingly accept a challenge from them, provided the tobi roppo were able to acquire Yamato. I mean, just look at this. This is an incredibly terrifying face, and it also goes to show that there is indeed going to be an internal conflict between the Beast Pirates in this upcoming battle. Up until now, it's been very tempting to think of this war as the Beast Pirates working cohesively with perhaps the odd bit of betrayal here and there by the worst generation members, but with the tobi roppo, you definitely see some pretty incredible ambition at play, and I would not be surprised if they use the ensuing events to help topple some key figures. And even if it's not their intention to see the destruction of the Beast Pirates, they would still ultimately end up helping the Allied forces. Now, another panel I loved in this chapter was the full body shot of King, and I think this is actually probably the finest artwork we've seen of this particular character so far. And he looks incredibly intimidating, much more so than his initial reveal. But I continue to love the sheer amount of detail incorporated into his design, and it really makes me wonder if Oda just sighs to himself whenever he begins drawing a page with King and kind of curses himself for coming up with such a great yet ornate design. Let's move back a bit now. In the beginning of the chapter was filled with a great deal of fun with the straw hats, and as much as all of it is ultimately inconsequential to everything, it was very appreciated because rather sadly, since we're going deep into arch-shanagans, this was probably the last opportunity that I think we'll have to spend time with the entire crew together until the conclusion of Wano. So it was great to see moments like Sanji wanting to jump into the tank and it being full with usops around by scantily clad Nami and Karat in the Beast Pirate attire, as well as moments like Frankie inviting Robin to ride with him and Brooke socially awkwardly accepting the offer in her stead. Although the funniest part was definitely when they were explaining what happened to Luffy and Zoro. And I love that Luffy went off to kid thinking that he was obviously the best choice to diffuse that situation. And then naturally Zoro made the decision to go and stop Luffy in this hilarious domino style effect because he's obviously going to fail and get lost. And it just felt like some nice classic one piece. I have to say though, I think my favorite part of the scene was very simply seeing Jinbei and Robin interact together. We were both looking pretty stunning in their new outfits, Jinbei especially. Primarily because it's really weird to see him wearing anything that isn't a literal Jinbei, but these two had a nice short and somewhat mature exchange. You know, these are the two intellectuals of the crew. The ones who aren't easily subject to emotion or caught up in the pace of others. So to see them take that time to exhale and just go, huh, aren't these guys great? Was really nice. And in fact, I hope to see more of this duo because it's something I've not thought about before but a Jinbei-Robin combination could yield some very interesting and unique battle tactics. So there was some great comedy there but this chapter had an all important segment of drama which is what we were left on. With Luffy infiltrating the banquet and pretty hilariously asking about kid only to be caught up in this situation where gasp food is being wasted. Normally this would be something of a Sanji trigger. We do not waste food around our chef. However, with the context of Tama's starvation in mind Luffy has a pretty damn scary look on his face by the end of our chapter here. And unless someone very swiftly steps in to stop Luffy I don't see how this doesn't break into an all-out brawl. Thus making Luffy the direct catalyst for all of the chaos as per usual. I also do really like that the early Wanoak is coming back into full force here and the time we spent with Tama is having a compound effect. It was definitely important because Tama very much represents the desperate plight of the civilians of Wano. So it's cool to see that Luffy is carrying all of that weight into this battle. And of course it's always pretty hype to see him put on his serious face. It always takes me back to the days of Jaya where he went into Mocktown to hunt down Bellamy after he beat up Cricket and stole his gold. Or even on Sabati where he stepped in to punch St. Charles after he'd shot Hatchan. Whatever the case, when this face happens we do know that something pretty big is about to go down from our captain. Now there was a lot more to the chapter in the opening pages but a lot of it was just kind of technical stuff. Like we have a breakdown of how the samurai forces are being divided and scattered around Onigashima. And I don't really have any strong opinions on what we saw here because most of it was stuff that we already knew. Kinamon already explained the plan and we saw the vassals traveling with law earlier. So these pages felt a bit redundant to be honest. Although I must say that Kinamon looks like an absolute boss in his Beast Pirate garb as does Dendro actually. One new thing we do learn is that we're on a bit of a strange clock here because Dendro is having a surprising amount of difficulty reaching Orochi with Momonosuke. And very, very intriguingly there is this shot of Momonosuke just staring at a knife which is very, hmm. It looks like he's probably being set up to escape from Kandro all on his own or at least give it a decent shot and really step up in this world as he is going to need to in order to take the reins of Shogun. And finally, let's bring this whole review just down a bit because it's pretty essential for me to comment on the cover story this time around especially since I very, very recently made a video detailing the top five characters who should have died in one piece. And while no, I don't think the pound would have made that list over everyone else I put there he at the very least would have been a necessary honorable mention if I'd waited until now to publish that video. So look, as I stated numerous times in that video I hate fake out deaths. I think they are very, very difficult to do properly and more often than not they tend to ruin the genuinely generated emotion in retrospect of the scene and one piece is riddled with problems like these. So on the one hand, no, I shouldn't be surprised but I am still annoyed that we have yet another example here in pound. I get it. This is one piece. This is just what Oda does but it's consistently the one thing that I think is a huge stain on an otherwise near flawless series. Pound's final moments during Hawkeye Island were utterly heartbreaking. Stepping in and sacrificing himself for the sake of his daughter who didn't even know who he was but it didn't matter. Pound was just happy to see that Chiffon was living happily and that was it. A perfect character rock. It was all he needed and it was such wonderful writing all of which is ruined in retrospect because Pound is the latest in a long line of characters who were given a death scene only to be narratively resurrected. Notice that I say narratively, not literally. So yes, I am kind of annoyed with that. I really wish Oda would stop kneecapping himself when it comes to sacrifice related drama but here we are now I guess and here's the thing. I suppose it is kind of nice to know that this family unit will get something of a happy ending here. We'll get to see Pound, Lola and Chiffon together and yes, it will be delightful, heartwarming and all of the other good feels possible and we'll just have to be happy with that but another positive aspect about the cover story is being able to see the Tantata flagship again. I really, really like this vessel. I think it has one of the more intriguing designs in the series, especially with how it seems to incorporate various elements of nature and of course it's not on impossible to ignore the glory that is the God Usopp figurehead leading the charge. Now as for the Tantata members on board, interesting thing here, there are a lot of figures who look like they might be Leo and even one that looks like they might be Kabu but that can't be the case because both of them were present at the reverie and earlier on in this cover story, the edge tried to cross the red line but couldn't because the reverie was still ongoing so Leo and Kabu were definitely not here or at the very least they should not be here so I guess we'll probably find out who was homing the ship eventually and also I really like the detail of having green bit in the background of the shot and you know what, it's been really nice to revisit Dressroser actually as much as Ahsoka's reading that arc for just over two years was there is some very nice nostalgia attached to it for me and that pretty much shows it for chapter 979 but what do you guys think? Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my Discord server and if you'd like to see more videos like this then please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious One Piece business uploaded straight into your YouTube feeds but for now, this has been the Grand Line Review and I'll see you next time.